ames likes toast

Hi guys

another several hundred months have gone by and I still haven't done anything good I can show you. I keep sticking snippets on twitter but nothing I can write a big meaty post about.

don't know if you noticed but my monsters have been on the radio lately: Adam Buxton and Edith Bowman are using them in a feature on their new show. Quite excited about that but it would have been nice to maybe make Edith her own monster instead of Baaaddad in a wig, but whatevs, maybe the BBC doesn't have the budget for that kind of thing any more. Here are this morning's photos: they're v cool.

Anyway seeing as I have nothing new to show you I thought I'd do one of my crafty buds a favour and talk about them for a bit. Me and Ames have known each other for ages and ages, and she's just venturing into the craft business world. So far she doesn't have any online outlets but I have been begging her to get sorted because, as you will see in a min, her work is mega lovely.

Okay photo time. I took some photos today from Ames' stall at the Horse and Jockey in Chorlton, here we go.

big boggle eyes, still struggling with focus on the new camera

christmas balls

owly hatz

rainbow octopuses

caterpillars!

more hats for tiny heads

lovely crocheted tree ornaments

Ames' stuff is colourful and cute, and she makes a lot of cool stuff for babies, SO much nicer than shit from Toys R Us or whatever. You can email her on ames_r81@yahoo.co.uk, although as I say she's currently kind of elusive. She is doing a lot of Christmas fairs around South Manchester so keep an eye out and say hi.

More soon ducks xx 

Oh, knitting.

Hello. I am writing a post because I am supposed to be doing interview prep, but it's Saturday night and you can't make me, you're not my real mum. Also, I haven't got anything else to do. Hooray, I'm really cool.

So it's nearly Christmas, oh boy. I have done two craft fairs in the past couple of weeks, and by 'done' I mean I have sat behind tables and occasionally smiled at people. I'm really good at that, I've been a receptionist for ages now which gives me the practice. I was supposed to take photos of my craft stalls, but they always look the same. I did the Chorlton Arts Festival one, at St Clements Church, and I did actually take some pictures but they're useless. Look.



Sigh. Here's some pairs of mittens I made.



Forgot to put the flash on.

I didn't even bother to take any photos at the craft fair I was at today, at the Zion Arts Centre in Hulme (there's no place like Hulme). It was really fun though, I met some lovely craftspeople and there was all sorts going on for the kiddies, like screenprinting t-shirts and general chucking paint about and making a nice mess. So instead I'm going to show you some gloves that I found at my mum's house. You ready?

These are gloves me and my sister used to wear as littluns, fascinating. I have taken these photos Facebook style in the mirror, because there was no one else there apart from my dad and he didn't seem very interested. I don't know why.



I like the second one from the left with his bleeding eye. I wish these fitted me.

Thumb:



Second: interesting design here, they have a miniature glove in the same colours, attached to the back of the glove by a string. Why? Also, in this (crap) photo you can see how my massive hand won't fit in the glove at all.



Third: the best glove/mitten I have ever seen. You couldn't do anything with these on, and why should you? You've got LIONS for hands!! I pretended that the lion was going to bite the cat's face, but he wasn't scared. My mum's cats are hardcore.



Right well, I have done that now, so I best get back to whatever I was supposed to be doing. Eating everyone's Christmas presents in my pyjamas. Bye! Happy Christmas if I don't see you before! Bye! xx

Some monsters what I forgot about

Oh hi there. I was just idly looking through some of my photo folders, marvelling at how disorganised they are, and I realised that I had NOT showed you some VITAL ITEMS. This is very important! I had better show you RIGHT NOW and CAPITALISE some words while I am AT it!

Erm

Well first up, this is Cara and Siobhan.



Cara wanted monsters to celebrate their 5th anniversary: the perfect present. They are very cute aren't they! I love making monsters with red hair, for some reason. I think it's because I can make it mega bright and that's my MO. Anyway, Cara advises me that they love them and that is that.

Hooray!

Okay, secondses: this is my sister Caroline.



Caroline is VERY beautiful and fancy. She enjoys being bedecked in jewels and lace and looks spiffing at all times. We are not very similar. Check out this real ruby that I got especially.



Swit swoo Caroline.

This next one is Gruff Rhys. I forgot I made this and actually don't know where it is.



I went to see Gruff Rhys ages ago and he DJed afterwards at Islington Mill where I would have had ample opportunity to freak out and not talk to him, but the last time I saw him there was no such opportunity. I guess I will stick it on Folksy, it's a pretty cool monster. The big mouths are such an integral part of the monster style, that when I make one without it looks really bonkers to me. I wanted to concentrate on his jumper, you see. The swirly pattern is supposed to resemble the patterns on Gruff's guitar.

Ohhh-kay. What else. Digging in old photo folders is fun!

Oh my gosh. This is a dreadful photo, but I will show you anyway. It's Roger, you guys!



Roger wanted a monster for his nephew, a Roger monster, so the baby could play with the monster and then meet Roger and be all like, WHHAAAAT. That's why all the eyes and glasses and everything are made out of felt. It's my attempt to make the monster baby-proof. I can't believe I never took a proper photo of this, he's got wicked DMs which are missing off this crap one. Roger, if you read this and you have any better photos, please email them to me? He did show me one photo of the baby laughing his head off at the monster which was MINT.



Okay, last one for now. This is Jim. He made my website, which if you haven't seen, you should totally go and look at in a minute. If you don't care about the monsters, you should go for the web design. Although, if you don't care about monsters, what are you doing here you daft toilet.

Anyway, Jim's girlfriend Alice requested this one to go with hers (red-haired, wicked bright) and apparently his favourite shirt is this checked orange one. Do you know how hard it is to knit a gingham pattern on a monster 4 inches high? I think I did an all right job of it but I gave up by the time I got to the collar.

Oh Jim made Alice's website too, it is here. She's like this completely amazing recyclist and craft workshopifier.

Well that'll do. I'm doing a couple of craft fairs in the South Manc area soon, come along. The next one is the Chorlton Arts Festival one, in St Clements Church, Manchester Road, Chorlton. 26th November, 11-4 I think. Tell your mates! It's gonna be CRAZY. I love you xx

We All Match

Hello. Hey, look at this. I think this is one of the best pictures I've ever been in. Don't the tops of our heads look ace? You can tell we all approve, because we are sticking our thumbs up. We are special.



I'm going to Garth's in an hour so I will endeavour to take a picture of him in HIS hat, which is a complete masterpiece of a topper.

For some reason I decided to look up synonyms for the word 'hat' then (something remaining from GCSE English, not using the same word twice in a sentence) and 'topper' was my favourite! Synonym.com helpfully gave me: 'wear, put on, get into, don, assume, supply, provide, render, furnish.' Right, thanks.

Anyway I have things to be making, for these craft fairs I'm doing at the weekend. I don't know if I've ever mentioned them! This is one. SATURDAY, guys. And here is the other one. That's SUNDAY, you know.

Erk. Right, back to the tangled mess. Byeeeeeee

Chrimble Craft Fair-tastic

So I had a stall at the Chorlton Arts Festival Christmas Craft Market (or CAFCCM for short) at St Clements Church on Saturday. It was brilliant fun and I did pretty well! I had lots of visitors too. Thanks to everyone who came down to say hi!

This is my stall. It looks pretty much exactly like the stall I had in May, doesn't it? Except with a Christmas tree. The tree only had two legs so I cunningly leaned it against the wall. Clever.



Just going to show you a few pictures of things I made for the fair, some of which have now been sold. Okay?



Mr Christmas 'narna.



Apple fellow.



This is Corn On The Cob. Hard to tell from the photo.



Christmas hot dawg.



Carrot. Something you might actually eat at Christmas, finally.

Couple of the mini monsters I made. I love these, they are stupid.






This one is Mister Farty Christmas. He has a white beard and everything.



This is a pair of fingerless gloves that I made without a pattern or anything, I just made 'em up as I went along. Can you tell? I really liked them though and so did somebody else because they bought them. Hooray!



Do you like my doctored business cards which had the wrong URL on them? Flawless. I am a DIY WIZARD.



Here are John and Laura having just bought some winter woollies off me. I didn't make John's hat. I made the gloves and Laura's hat which you can't actually see. But rest assured, it's very pretty.

That's like, all the time we have for now. Hope you enjoyed my snaps. Ooh! I will be doing TWO more craft fairs in the same weekend. The first one is on the 11th December at the Nip and Tipple, Upper Chorlton Road, Chorlton, Manchester, I-Don't-Know-The-Postcode. That should be fun and sparkly and magical. I'm sure there will be mulled wine and other treats, there normally is at these things. The second one will be at St Wilfred's Enterprise Centre in Hulme on the 12th. Here is a link. More opportunities to purchase nice things for you there! I think you should come to both of them.

Right bye!

What larks!

Well, the crafty market yesterday was a lot of fun and a big success! I sold a few bits and bobs, which is obviously super cool, but I was also mega boosted by all the lovely comments and great feedback that people gave me throughout the day. It makes me happy to know that someone likes what I make. Sometimes when I spend a lot of time making and don't talk to anyone for ages, I get a bit paranoid about it, so it was nice to hear. Thanks guys!

This is what my stall looked like at the start of the day.



It changed quite frequently as I sold things and moved stuff around, used my lunchbox as a pedestal, added more things that I'd forgotten about, etc. But I didn't take photos of that.

My work appears to be quite popular with youngsters, which is cool. I am naturally drawn to brightly coloured things too. Okay, so you know the monsters mostly have big, open mouths? Something I noticed was that kids and grownups alike are compelled to stick their finger in there. It happened so many times! I wonder why? They must just be so inviting.


AaagUMMM

Whenever there was a flurry of activity, I took some covert photos, here we go look.





Mmm!

Well, at the risk of sounding like a right pleb, thanks so much everyone for coming to visit me yesterday, you made me smile and I like you! So now I am going to whack the rest of my stuff on Etsy, and Folksy too I reckons. I have to start asking shops and places to stock my stuff, too. Aargh, this scares me more than I can ever tell you. I don't know why. Yikes. Well, I will try not to have a breakdown about it and report back. Bye!

happy and tired and crafting

Hey chaps. As I have mentioned ten million times, I am selling my wares at the Chorlton Arts Festival craft fair on Saturday. I have pretty much finished sorting all my stuff out, few bits and bobs left. Here are some things you may not have seen.










Come visit me.

I also made some flyers and got Nic to print them for me, and they look pretty cool. However, can you spot the not-very-glaring error here?



Yes, the URL is wrong. It should be shop/helenmakes, not shopS. What a wanny. I might have to be super professional and go through the stack with a marker and remove all the superfluous Ss. Aargh. A tiny but significant mistake.

What else. I am super happy this week following a marvellous weekend at ATP. It blew on my mind. I am actually finding it quite hard to get on with things properly. Also, as soon as we got back we went straight back out to see the Bundles, which was pretty much the most exciting thing ever. I am still really tired from all the excitement. I think I am going to make Jeffrey and Kimya monsters and send them to them.

Anyway, best be off, crafty crafty. Come on Saturday, it'd be ace to see all y'all, you might even get a fist bump.

See ya!